21.403 capacious memories & sufficient organizing ability

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 21, No. 403.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:24:30 +0000
         From: "Hunsucker, R.L." <R.L.Hunsucker_at_uva.nl>
         Subject: RE: 21.400 capacious memories & sufficient organizing ability

Intriguing, all of this ; developments we'd indeed do well to
keep an eye on, it seems to me.

> . . . where are we in respect of this argument?

I really wish I had a good answer off the top of my head.
I'm certainly not myself anything like expert in such matters,
and in fact too incompetent even to think of trying to offer
any meaningful response. But I note that fortunately there
are places where one might be able to look for a bit of
informed guidance.

As far as *deduction* is concerned, one might well turn,
for example, to the writings of someone like Wolfgang
Bibel, maybe starting with his (invited talk) "Early history
and perspectives of automated deduction", which has just
appeared on p.2-18 of _KI 2007 : Advances in artificial
intelligence : 30th Annual German conference on AI,
Osnabr=FCck, Germany, September 10-13, 2007, Proceedings_
/ Joachim Hertzberg [et al.] (eds.) (_Lecture notes in
computer science_ ; 4667) (Berlin / Heidelberg : Springer,
2007) (ISBN 978-3-540-74564-8).

In the same series you've also got the much bigger
pill from a conference two months earlier : _Automated
deduction - CADE-21 : 21st International conference on
automated deduction, Bremen, Germany, July 17-20,
2007, Proceedings_ / Frank Pfenning (ed.) (_Lecture
notes in computer science_ ; 4603) (Springer, 2007)
(ISBN 978-3-540-73594-6).

An older look-to-the-future may also be worth checking
on : D.W. Loveland, "Automated deduction looking ahead",
_AI Magazine_ 20.1 (1999), p.77-98.

I'd also recommend D. Hutter's article "Deduction as an
engineering science", in _Electronic notes in theoretical
computer science_ 86.1 (2003), p.3-10 ; and B.
Gramlich's "Strategic issues, problems and challenges in
inductive theorem proving", in the same periodical 125.2
(2005), p.5-43.

Interesting and relevant in a more general way is Arkoudas
and Bringsjord's very recent "Computers, justification, and
mathematical knowledge", in _Minds and machines_ 17.2
(2007), p.185-202. Certainly also Tyler Burge's "Computer
proof, a priori knowledge, and other minds: the Sixth
_Philosophical perspectives_ lecture", in _Philosophical
perspectives_ 12 (1998), p.1-37. Also worth looking at
is the (mathematics-oriented) "Platonism, constructivism,
and computer proofs vs. proofs by hand", by Yuri Gurevich,
which appeared (in augmented form) in _Current trends in
theoretical computer science : entering the 21st century_ /
ed. by G.Paun [et al.] (Singapore : World Scientific, 2001),
p.281-302.

More possibilities, without going into really technical stuff
or too far back in time : Donald MacKenzie, _Mechanizing
proof : computing, risk, and trust_ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 2001) (ISBN 0-262-13393-8), and the critical review
of that book by Otavio Bueno & Jody Azzouni in _Philosophia
mathematica_ 13.3 (2005), p.319-325 ; and Samuel R. Buss
[et al.], "The prospects for mathematical logic in the twenty-
first century", in _Bulletin of symbolic logic_ 7.2 (2001), p.
169-196.

There are other good things available, but that ought to be
enough for those curious about such questions to get started.
(Alas I don't myself have the time these days to follow them
and similar things up, but -- like Willard -- I'd sure like to
hear more from anyone who has a handle on these matters.)

- Laval Hunsucker
U. v. Amsterdam
Received on Mon Dec 10 2007 - 03:46:46 EST